Ed Payne, a 40-year-old dairy farmer from the west of Ireland, won the 2026 Montane Summer Spine Race on Wednesday evening, completing the 268-mile Pennine Way in 82 hours, 28 minutes and seven seconds. He touched the wall of the Border Hotel in Kirk Yetholm, in the Scottish Borders, shortly before 7pm. His two children walked the final yards with him.
Payne had set off from Edale, in Derbyshire, at 8am on Sunday 14 June. By the time he reached the finish on Wednesday 17 June, his nearest competitor, Samuel Adams, was about 27 miles behind. Jenny Hartley led the women’s race when Payne crossed the line.
The win is striking because Payne pulled out of the same race last year. Foot problems forced him into a DNF near Dufton, in Cumbria. Before this year’s start, he was publicly unsure he could even finish.
“The mood is good, the body is where it is,” he wrote in a blog in the days before the race. “I’d love to say I’m feeling strong and I’ve practiced with the pack, but I can’t. What I can say is I’m much more comfortable with just finishing.” He added that he had “no real right to talk at all about finishing this”.
At the finish line, his message to anyone facing a hard task in their own life was short. “Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t,” he said.
Sleep demons on the Pennine Way
Payne told Greatest Hits Radio he had slept less than two hours over the four days on the trail. “I’m feeling surprisingly good,” he said. “The sleep demons decided when I needed to sleep and not me. I wasn’t very happy with that.”
Sleep deprivation is part of what makes the Spine so hard. There are no set stages. Runners grab whatever rest they can at checkpoints, and many report hallucinations by the later sections of the route. The drop-out rate is high. For most who enter, the goal is to finish at all.
Asked what kept him going on the climbs and the bogs, Payne pointed to his family. “These three people standing behind me, and my dad,” he said, looking emotional. “Yeah, I’m a family man.”
He also thanked the team back home in Ireland. “We’re milking cows at home and we have a team of people there,” he said. “Without them, I’d be at home milking cows, so it’s just a big thanks to them.”
A farmer who runs ultras
Payne manages 550 cows on a 370-acre farm. He has spoken before about the way the day job feeds into his running. “I don’t see 550 cows as an excuse not to be fit, but I have used them as an excuse,” he told the Irish Independent last year.
The Spine sends runners north from the Peak District through the Yorkshire Dales and Northumberland before crossing into Scotland. Thick mud and deep bog are routine on the route. Payne handles both at work, and the everyday skills certainly paid off out on the Pennine Way.
His win in Kirk Yetholm was not his first ultra title. Last September he won the 220-kilometre Race Across Wales.
His finish time of 82:28:07 sits about 12 hours off the summer Spine record set by Tiaan Erwee in 2022, which stands at 70 hours, 46 minutes and 50 seconds.
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